Posted in February 2012 …

Feb 19 2012
Intents

Reviewed Intents

My Campus; Sticky Note Edition by James Knight

“I like this idea. There are websites dedicated to college student reviews, but in my experience, they’re very poorly done, empty, and most of the reviews don’t touch on the examples you gave. I very much like the idea of upvotes and downvotes; it’d be a good way to bring the best stuff to the top, and filter out the not so good stuff. Sites like Reddit.com use this system successfully.

Conceptual: 9”

Sidewalks Get Their Say, Too by Andrew Robbins

“I think it’s a good way to be heard. I always notice the stuff written on sidewalks, even though it’s just chalk . . . so it’d be cool to see what you could do with stencils.

Conceptual: 8”

 

Feb 19 2012
Hactivism, Intents

Intent: “New Last.FM Statistics”

Last.FM is a great site that takes information from your iTunes account and displays playcounts for artists and albums.

I would like to create some sort of app that takes the music statistics from a user’s “Last.FM” account a bit further and displays a range of new, different statistics, such as what percent of your music is female/male vocal-fronted, instrumental, genre, or what decade it’s from, and displays it in a visual way, like a pie chart, for each category. So, it would basically be a hack on your existing Last.FM statistics.

These new statistics could be based on existing tags from Last.FM, and could be an interesting autobiographical look at different aspects of a user’s listening habits less common than simply “most played artist” or “most played song.”

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Feb 19 2012
Hactivism, Responses

Response: “denial-of-service attacks”

This isn’t a specific artwork or project, but I know that “denial-of-service” attacks are sometimes used by hacktivism groups to make a certain website unavailable to users. I’m not sure about how a denial-of-service attack works specifically, but it basically leads to a server overload. It’s a crude example of hacktivism for sure, but I thought it would fit because the internet group “Anonymous” has used denial-of-service attacks in the past to bring down websites of organizations of which they find fault with. For example, recently on January 20, 2012, they used denial-of-service attacks on the Department of Justice and FBI websites to call attention to the website Megaupload being shut down.

 

Feb 19 2012
Hactivism, Responses

Response: Edge of Art — Ch. 4

One of my favorite projects from this chapter was “They Rule,” something that we saw earlier in this class before reading Edge of Art. It shows connections between corporations/very powerful people in a very visual and striking way. It’s a great way to use technology to expose something that was possibly previously unnoticed, and I like the quote from Edge of Art that says “once you get enough information in one place, you can draw connections you might not otherwise apprehend.” I love that concept, and I agree that They Rule is a prime example of hacktivism. It uncovered a lot of connections that weren’t as easy to make before They Rule was created, such as the connection between Coke and Pepsi that Edge of Art points out.

 

I like the idea that “hacktivism” can foster an environment where people can make bold political statements safely, and that artists are allowed to cross certain boundaries due to artistic license.

Feb 19 2012
Hactivism, Responses

Response: Edge of Art — Ch 1

I think the most important thing I took from this chapter was the idea of “artistic misuse,” especially since this is a unit on hacktivism. In submitting our intents, it is likely that many of our projects will include a “hack” or misuse of something in order convey a certain message. This chapter focused heavily code as art. In other words, the way in which programmers can purposely misuse code to create something new and innovative. I was struck by the example of Nam Jun Paik installing the magnet on top of a television set to achieve a certain effect. Certainly this is a misuse and a hack on this technology, but it created something completely new. I’ve learned that purposely using things in a way they weren’t meant to be used can be innovative. For example, earlier in this class we watched “As it Happened — A Secret History of Hacking,” where “”phone phreaks” experimented with telephones in ways it wasn’t supposed to be used for, and had never been done before, but it basically lead to computer hacking.

Feb 16 2012
Autobotography, Responses

Response: Cyborg Manifesto

“Cyborg Manifesto”

Honestly, I wanted to understand and get something from this reading, but nearly every bit of it went way over my head. However; I do have a bit to comment on.

“Our machines are disturbingly lively, and we ourselves frighteningly inert.” I’m not sure where I originally heard this, but I definitely recognize it from somewhere, possibly another New Media course. It’s a striking quote, and I believe it’s relevant to something we often discuss in class. When technology is developed that augments one of our senses, something (one of our other senses, perhaps) is degraded as a result. I think this connects to the aforementioned quote from the Cyborg Manifesto in the way that the machines are becoming “disturbingly lively,” while inversely, we are becoming “frighteningly inert.”

Feb 13 2012
Approaches, Hactivism

Approach: Virtual Dining Hall Comment Board

  • The first step would be to build a mock-up of the visual aspects of this website. It would be very basic, and would possibly draw upon the imagery of the physical comment cards in some of the dining halls here on campus.
  • It would be interesting to take it a step further and do some interviewing in the dining halls of the people who eat campus food every day, to learn what kind of questions they have about the quality and origins of the food here on campus. This could even include video interviews. It could perhaps be a way to kick start the use of the Virtual Dining Hall Comment Board, since it is completely community-driven.
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Feb 10 2012
Autobotography

2-9-2012 NMD206 Notes

– personal <=> political

– the world is in a specific political structure

– autobiography about yourself and the culture around you

Feb 09 2012
Autobotography, Responses

Modern Living Animations

These animations are an interactive, animated self portrait for Han Hoogerbrugge. At first glance, many of these animations were nonsense to me. However, some make a little sense. For example, the one we watched in class of the man in the water, it has a sadistic quality to it, because it becomes a sort of game to keep him under water. You don’t quite realize that until you’ve been doing it awhile.

 

Another that caught my eye was one called “Angel.” The user controls a cross, which makes a man move around like a puppet. Which, in a way, could be a way to express that some people are “puppets” strung along by religious figures, I suppose.

Feb 02 2012
Hactivism, Intents

Intent: Dining Hall Virtual Comment Board

The comment boards in the dining halls at UMaine are either poorly maintained or nonexistent. It would be neat to have a system where users could upload comments to a “virtual comment board” for the dining management to easily see. Comments would be upvoted or downvoted based on quality by the community. It would be very visual, and each comment would require information like “dining location” and “time of visit” so comments could be filtered and categorized.

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